Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by georgemcbay 4739 days ago
"Wait? I thought patents required a working prototype."

Not since 1880.

"If that's not the case I'm going to patent everything, but with quantum computers. And then everything, but with nanotechnology."

This is essentially what patent troll corporations do -- patent obvious mashups of New Technology X with Old Use Case Y. This sort of idea canvassing has been going on for a very long time.